By Kieron Murdoch | Opinion Contributor

The official designation and opening of an international airport in Barbuda is a significant development which is likely to have major benefits for the island.

On the issue of tourism especially, it is expected to aid Barbuda in being more accessible to visitors who will contribute to its economic activity. On various other social and economic levels, it is expected to be hugely impactful in a positive way.

It would be wrong however, to observe the opening of the new airport without acknowledging the fact that its construction began in a politically opportunistic manner, without lawful approval, and ultimately demonstrated the propensity of the state to disregard the rights of its own citizens and its obligation to abide by its own laws.

Witnessing the understandable pomp and ceremony that attended the opening of the new international airport, one might almost forget that its construction was rapidly initiated when many of the island’s residents were still living in shelters in Antigua, following the passage of Irma in 2017.

The moment seemed chosen for the fact that residents who might otherwise have offered opposition were too busy picking up the pieces of their lives.

Similarly, one might be tempted to forget – as has been demonstrated and acknowledged in numerous court papers from the level of the High Court up to the Privy Council – that the government initiated the construction with an inadequate environmental impact assessment (EIA) (it did a second one later) and without the required development permit from the Development Control Authority (DCA).

These are facts which some prefer are not rehashed. They are politically inconvenient. Those who rehash them run the risk of being labelled detractors, political operatives, or people opposed to progress and development.

Afterall, a little procedural irregularity and political opportunism here and there are necessary elements of any national development strategy, correct?

To be clear, we view the addition of the international airport on Barbuda as a positive development. It has the potential to be transformative in terms of enhancing the connectivity the residents there enjoy, supporting the growth in economic activity on the island, and reducing the logistical challenges posed by the movement of goods into or out of Barbuda.

While the government and the Prime Minister ought to be commended for having the vision and the drive to get it done, the problem we encounter is how that drive was applied.

“The ends justify the means” is a phrase often used pejoratively when someone is criticising the questionable manner in which a person arrived at a nonetheless desirable outcome.

The phrase is either a rephrase of statements made or a summation of the views expressed by the Florentine statesman and writer Niccolò Machiavelli, a famous political philosopher whose utterly pragmatic and amoral approaches to success in gaining and retaining political power and effectiveness have made his works famous throughout the centuries.

In The Discourses, published in 1531, he wrote: “For although the act condemns the doer, the end may justify him…” Similarly, in an undated letter to Piero Soderini, he wrote: “In judging policies, we should consider the results that have been achieved through them, rather than the means by which they have been executed.”

Did the ends justify the means? Certainly the result was desirable for the island of Barbuda. But are we to ignore the political, environmental, and lawful missteps in initiating it? Even for those who visited Barbuda in the aftermath of Irma in September 2017, it would be inordinately difficult to fully grasp the anguish and distress experienced by its residents in the immediate aftermath of the storm if you happened not to have lived through it.

One woman invited this writer into her home – windowless, doorless, roofless – and pointed to the cast iron washroom sink under which she sought refuge once the Category 5 winds blew open her door, tore off her roof, and threatened to pull her outside the walls of her home and to certain death.

The expression on her face was a mix of disbelief and helplessness. Outside, a piece of galvanise was crumpled around a utility pole like someone had squashed foil around the tip of a pen

What are we to call it when in the aftermath of a disaster of such magnitude, while a community is still displaced, their government capitalises on their absence and their disarray to initiate a project which it knew would attract concern or opposition from at least some of them? What impact does that have on the trust that citizens are expected to have in their government when such a thing occurs?

The wider challenge faced by the administration at the time was the unending contention and disagreement over the administration, ownership, development, and politics of land on Barbuda. Yet, in this case, it was not some onerous provision of the now repealed Barbuda Land Act that was in contention, it was a basic requirement of the Physical Planning Act, which governs all of Antigua and Barbuda.

In February 2024, the United Kingdom (UK) based Judicial Committee of the Privy Council (JCPC), rendered a judgement on the issue of whether two Barbudans had standing to pursue judicial review proceedings against a decision to grant a development permit for the construction of the new airport runway. Many of the facts in the airport saga were recorded there.

Firstly, the document notes – as we mentioned – that “work commenced on the airstrip around September 2017, while the majority of Barbudans were off the island following Hurricane Irma.” Secondly, it notes that an application for a development permit in accordance with the Physical Planning Act was only made “on 27 November 2017,” after work had commenced and concern had been expressed.

Thirdly, it notes that in December 2017, the Department of the Environment (DoE) wrote to the Chief Town and Country Planner at the DCA acknowledging that the work was well advanced and that many of the negative environmental impacts had already occurred and that this could have been avoided had the application been received and reviewed by the DoE prior to the commencement of work.

Fourthly, it notes that the DoE raised “significant criticisms” of an original EIA dated 26 June 2017, known as the first EIA, due to significant gaps in areas such as archaeology, biodiversity and geology at the site, and that the DoE raised concern over the fact that construction had commenced prior to application for a permit.

Fifth, the document notes that during Appeals Court proceedings in 2018, it was revealed that the government made “a fresh application on 13 July 2018 for a runway for Code 4C aircraft” and that “the application had been granted by the DCA and a development permit had been issued on 18 July 2018.”

It was noted that the DCA head had granted this permit “on the strength of an oral conversation” with a Senior Environmental Officer “who had told him that the DoE had reviewed the second EIA and found it satisfactory”. But then, the head of the DoE subsequently wrote to the DCA head on 10 August 2018 recommending “conditional approval” of the development and setting out the conditions to be imposed.

Sixth, it was also noted that a second EIA had been carried out in May/June 2018 and that hydrological, geological and ground penetrating radar reports were produced in July 2018 but that “the second EIA and accompanying reports had not been disclosed” and were not provided to the Court of Appeal in 2018 nor the Privy Council in November 2023.

Seventh, the document noted that “neither of the applications was publicised so there was no opportunity for people to comment or make representations” but that the government argued that residents were made aware of the project at a village meeting on 2 March 2015 “which discussed and approved a development project for Barbuda which included the airport”.

The document went on: “The Physical Planning Act 2003 sets out a procedure whereby applications for development permits are to be publicised and representations can be made on the proposals themselves which the DCA is required to take into account…These provisions cannot be circumvented by pointing to a consultation at a village meeting about wider development proposals more than two years before work commences on site.”

We encourage you to view it for yourselves here: https://www.jcpc.uk/cases/docs/jcpc-2021-0116-judgment.pdf

Regardless of whether you agree with us that having an international airport is a positive development for Barbuda, or you think it is not, we should all be able to agree that there were serious procedural irregularities in how the process was initiated, and thereafter how the government went about rectifying those irregularities, or not.

This, added to the opportunism displayed in initiating work immediately after a disaster when residents were displaced and opposition to work was likely to be minimised, should lead anyone to conclude that the state has displayed contempt both for its own laws and for its citizens during the process. What is the point of having laws that require step by step procedures, transparency, and careful consideration, if they will be abandoned for political expediency?

Another glaring moral of this story which is not spoken of often is the fact that the DCA and to some extent, the DoE, in their current forms, cannot be expected to effectively act as impartial arbiters and referees of development requests when the client from whom those requests emanate is the government itself or when there is significant government interest involved.

It is easy enough to look at the achievement of a new international airport and forget the controversy of how it was constructed. It holds great promise for Barbuda and the nation as a whole. But right-thinking citizens must insist that the means by which the government pursues these beneficial projects be means which are lawful, transparent, and respectful of its obligation to observe the rights of all of its citizens.

About the writer:

Kieron Murdoch worked as a journalist and later as a radio presenter in Antigua and Barbuda for eight years, covering politics and governance especially. He is an opinion contributor at antigua.news. If you have an opinion on the issues raised in this editorial and you would like to submit a response by email to be considered for publication, please email staff@antigua.news.